Month: August 2017

The Browns are apparently trying offload cornerback Joe Haden, according to CBS Sports.

It’s a tall order for the Browns, since Haden is contracted to make $11.1 million this season, $11.2 million next season and $10.5 million in 2019.

After Haden made the Pro Bowl for the second year in a row in 2014 he was signed to a hefty five-year contract worth $67.5 million.

If the Browns are able to trade Haden, they would clear up a combined $5.5 million in salary cap space for 2017 and ’18, according to Sportrac.

To complicate matters, Haden has been sidelined on and off over the past two years with various injuries, including a concussion, finger injury and a groin issue. He also had an abysmal 2016 season, finishing 115th out of 132 cornerbacks when it comes to production in his position, according to ProFootball Focus.

If the Browns trade Haden, young corners Jamar Taylor and Jason McCourty would likely start.

To those who believe Colin Kaepernick’s status as an unemployed NFL quarterback is due to his political statements, I’m here to tell you they’re only part of his problem. Kaepernick remains unsigned because he has a triple whammy working against him.

Despite the issues Kaepernick faces, however, I believe he will be signed no later than the early stages of the upcoming regular season. If I were an NFL general manager today with a shaky starter or a questionable backup, I certainly would consider the 29-year-old veteran.

Any of the following issues could derail a player’s chances to be signed. The combination of them is why Kaepernick has made just one team visit in free agency.

The Clippers really wanted Blake Griffin to stay. His free agency meeting was Friday, and the team basically built a shrine to him, described as a trip down memory lane.Womens Sean Mannion Jersey
There’s Griffin at the top right in his uniform, surrounded by Muhammad Ali, Barack Obama, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Albert Einstein, Michael Jackson, Mahatma Gandhi and Abraham Lincoln.

The inscription at the bottom of the shirt reads, LA Pioneers.

Some of these historical figures have tenuous ties to the City of Angels at best — this really seems like grasping at straws. It looks like the team just picked impactful men throughout history in an attempt to tell Blake Griffin he is just as impactful to Los Angeles.

Womens Stefan Charles Jersey Dedmon will be a fascinating free agent case. He’ll be 28 next season. He’s one of the very best rebounders in the league and a damn good rim protector. But he’s also a foul machine — it’s not so much his offensive constraints that keep him off the foul as it is his propensity to hack.

There is definitely a huge danger that some team falls in love, tests the Spurs’ loyalty, and gets burned with a bad contract. Alternately, a new team could unlike some hidden finishing talent in Dedmon’s bones and turn him into the next Hassan Whiteside.

Like Dedmon, Len’s problem staying on the floor is often foul trouble. Avoiding fouls can usually be learned. Len’s a nice little scorer and excellent rebounder who is just 24. Phoenix has the right to match, as Len is a restricted free agent. The most obvious solution is for the Suns to offer up a reasonable multi-year extension, but never count out the opportunity for a franchise with cap space to shake things up. No matter the era, young big men in the NBA make teams act crazy.

Elite Kids Jason Pominville Jersey A number of people have brought up Kobe Bryant’s 2007 trade demand in discussing how the Cavaliers should approach Kyrie Irving. I wrote about how the situations are much different.

Meanwhile, here’s Adrian Wojnarowski on how the Cavaliers are assuming they will be losing LeBron James next summer and are acting accordingly.

The world celebrated lefties over the weekend. Here are Whitney Medworth and Tim Cato on their favorite left-handed NBA players. Lamar Odom and Michael Redd were the most left-handed players ever. They just screamed leftihood!

Porzingis has said multiple times that he wants to win in New York, citing it as a legendary accomplishment to potentially bring a championship to the country’s largest market. If you ask his teammate Mindaugas Kuzminskas, that answer has never changed.

I don’t think it was something personal against the club,” Kuzminskas said, according to Marc Berman of the New York Post. If there [were] some problems I think they solved everything. No doubt he wants to be a Knick and he’s said that.”

Limited Kids A.J. Green Jersey Many of Porzingis’ issues with the organization stemmed from Jackson’s heavy-handedness. The hope is that they ended with his departure and Perry’s arrival.

As the public forms split opinions on the polarizing father of three talented basketball players, including the Lakers’ No. 2 overall pick Lonzo Ball, Jay-Z knows where he stands.

In an interview with Elliot Wilson and B. Dot on the Rap Radar podcast on Tidal, Hov unpacked why he supports LaVar Ball despite some of the controversial comments he made.

L.C. Greenwood Womens Jersey In an effort to provide a less grueling 82-game schedule, the NBA has implemented measures that afford players more rest time in between games.

First, the league moved the season start date up from Oct. 25 to Oct. 17. Doing so allowed the NBA to eliminate stretches of four games in five nights this season. There were 20 such instances last season, 27 in the 2015-16 season, and 70 in the 2014-15 season.

Out of the gate Ndamukat Suh dominated. That kitty head smushed into a helmet was too much for voters to pass up, and for a while it seemed like the vote was over before it began — then it happened.

Electoral purists will say the Sixers influencing the vote was a subversion of the democratic process, but I like to think it taught the team an important lesson about how you can finish first by winning something.

There is no denying who won this vote. Congratulations to Raise the Cat.Elite Tommy Hunter Jersey
All cats are good cats, however. So feel free to print out the following certificate and award it to your cat. Yes, you’ll be lying to your cat — but don’t think for a second that your cat wouldn’t lie to you.

It would be fun to say that Hamilton’s career high of 18 points against the Clippers — the only game where he’s ever had more than 11 points — was the deciding factor, but that game was in 2012. Rivers wasn’t there yet.

Doc probably remembered Austin from his debut outing on Aug. 1, 1992. The two reportedly stayed in touch over the years after that performance.

It’s been a sad weekend in Charlottesville, Va. Conflicts escalated from a rally held in support of white supremacy, and a man drove his car into a crowd of people protesting the rally. A protester, Heather Heyer, was killed, and 19 were injured. On Sunday, Chris and Kyle Long spoke about the tragic events in their hometown of Charlottesville.

The Columbus Police Department and Columbus City Attorney’s Office both declined to charge Elliott with a crime, due in part to witness statements that contradicted Thompson’s version of events. But the league does not rely on the same burden of proof as the legal system. The NFL can issue suspensions for conduct detrimental to the league without an arrest or a conviction.

The decision to appoint a designee may make a big difference on the outcome for Elliott. Goodell did not participate in the interview the league’s independent advisors held with Elliott, but he did personally make the decision to suspend Elliott for six games.

Henderson is the league’s former executive vice president of labor relations. He was named as Goodell’s designee for Greg Hardy’s and Adrian Peterson’s appeals. He reduced Hardy’s suspension from 10 games to four. Peterson’s appeal was denied and he remained suspended for an entire season.

Yahoo’s report does not refute that domestic violence occurred, but claims that the texts were in a 160-page document prepared by the NFL as part of lengthy investigation that lasted about a year.

That’s a bad sign for an offense that ranked 28th in the NFL in yards per play last season.

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If you love overtime, you’re in luck because there’s a whole lot of it come Stanley Cup playoffs time. There are no 3-on-3 overtime periods or shootouts to be found at this time of year.

Every postseason features thrilling overtime finishes, but while many of them are decided within a few minutes of extra time, some need a lot more than even one overtime period.Raekwon McMillan Authentic Jersey
These are the 10 longest overtime games in Stanley Cup playoffs history.

Isles fans have reason to be a bit frantic. The team has been linked in trade rumors regarding Avalanche center Matt Duchene (hence the No. 9 in the above tweet) for a while, and a deal would likely provide a big boost for the team heading into the latter stages of the season.

With the NHL trade deadline looming and the Islanders in a resurgence following the firing of coach Jack Capuano, the team could be a piece or two from being a dark horse out of the Eastern Conference.

The Islanders just sit one point back of the second wild card in the East, so there’s still a bit of work to be done. But under interim coach Doug Weight, the team has been revived, going 12-5-2 in 19 games with him in charge.

Therrien had Montreal atop the Atlantic Division (31-19-8), but the season, buoyed by a hot start, was beginning to enter a free fall similar to the one that kept the club out of the playoffs a year ago. The Habs’ talented roster suddenly couldn’t score, averaging just 2.07 goals per game in the 13-game slump, including three shutouts in their last five games.

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In World Pup, the best player on Josh’s high school soccer team happens to be a girl. In Seventh Inning Fetch, Josh’s baby sister, Andrea, and her best friend, Tammy, join the middle school baseball team with male teammates and a female coach. In Spikes Back, Andrea joins a summer league volleyball team that’s filled with girls and boys. All of this is treated as normal, and the fans who watch these teams don’t question (and why would they?) why girls and boys are on the same sports team. They just love watching these athletes play, and it’s a really cool thing to see.

My argument today isn’t that Kershaw is the best pitcher in baseball, which he is. It isn’t that he’s one of the best pitchers of all-time, with a non-zero chance to be the best pitcher of all-time, which he could be. It’s that he’s the most watchable player in baseball.

James White Jersey If you have someone who is showing the slightest interest in baseball, my advice to you is this: Skip Mike Trout. Forget Carlos Correa. Don’t even worry about Aaron Judge. Go straight to Clayton Kershaw.

This isn’t a scorching hot take. This is an appeal to raw numbers. In the 2017 season, Kershaw has faced 473 batters. Of those batters …

Which is a ruder but more satisfying way of saying that 363 times, Kershaw succeeded at his job. Do a similar tally for Judge, who has a chance at the Triple Crown. He’s in the middle of an absolutely transcendent season that will be appreciated for a century. He’s come to the plate 347 times this season, and in those plate appearances …

Limited Jaye Howard Jersey There’s less than a week left until the non-waiver trade deadline on July 31, and while there have been a few major trades and some smaller, multi-player transactions, there are still a lot of top targets left on the market.

Limited Christopher Tanev Jersey That means there are still a lot of interesting trade rumors floating around, too. Here, all of those potentially fun trade leaks (and yes, some less fun ones, too) are all in one place to make it as easy as possible to catch up on what might go down in baseball over the next few days.

While the day seems to have served as something of a salve for the players, and a privilege to spend time with the family Fernandez left behind, Rojas also underscored the day with an emotional statement.

For us, it means the world because he’s been missed the whole time. We’ve been playing through it, but we’ll never forget him. I know it was supposed to be his birthday today. Wherever he is, we know he’s with us.

Fernandez’s mother also honored her son’s birthday by making a $25,000 donation to the Kiwanis Club of Little Havana from Jose’s JDF16 Foundation saying, I feel that Jose would be proud of what I am doing in his memory … this gift comes from Jose’s heart.

Now, granted, Judge hit the roof during an event that is specifically manufactured so that people can hit baseballs long distances over and over again, not in an actual game. But still. No one else hit the roof, and he did it twice, against all odds and NASA’s best calculations. They put people on the moon successfully, and Judge unraveled one of their algorithms with a good old fashioned moon shot. He’s unreal.

It was rumored in recent weeks that Ezekiel Elliot could receive a short suspension prior to the start of the NFL season. No one expected him to get six full games, including Elliott.

The 22-year-old running back tweeted a statement Friday in response to the NFL’s six-game suspension saying he was ‘surprised and disappointed’ by the decision.

“There’s a certain standard we have and it’s something we weren’t very pleased with,” Bears coach John Fox said. “I haven’t had a chance to visit with him yet, but it’s something that we’ll handle it internally.”

Long has been sidelined since November when he tore a ligament in his right ankle against the Buccaneers. The team has been working with him to increase his practice and workout time as he recovers.

As to why Long got into several fights, Fox didn’t offer any information nor did he try to dive into the issue.

“I really can’t answer that at this point, I’m sure obviously there was some frustration — again, that’s not how we operate,” Fox said. “I didn’t really see everything, just know that there was a disturbance and we don’t need that. That’s why he left the field.”

Paul George appeared on the cover of “NBA 2K17.” The Pacers, fearing they would lose him for nothing after the 2017-18 season, traded him to the Thunder for a fairly meager return (Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis).

There’s little need to rehash the events that led to the departure of Kevin Durant, who was on the cover of “NBA 2K15.” He left the Thunder for the powerhouse Warriors to go after his first ring. Mission accomplished.

This has already been a pretty active trade season. The Cubs picked up Jose Quintana in one deal, then Justin Wilson and Alex Avila in another trade. The Yankees dealt for Todd Frazier and David Robertson. The Rockies have traded for a catcher (Jonathan Lucroy) and an ace reliever (Pat Neshek), and the Diamondbacks added slugger J.D. Martinez.

Red Sox rookie Rafael Devers entered Monday’s game against the Indians with six career hits. He added four more on Monday, including a double and RBI single in the 6-2 victory. Devers is the first Red Sox player age 20 or younger to collect 4 hits in a game since Tony Conigliaro in 1965.

Astros center fielder Jake Marisnick homered twice as part of a three-hit day and drove in five runs to lead Houston to a 14-7 rout of the Rays. Marisnick, who also walked once, scored four times in the win.

White Sox third baseman Matt Davidson went 2 for 4 with an eighth-inning home run as part of some late-game heroics. Davidson drove in three runs, including a walk-off RBI single in the bottom of the ninth to give the Sox a 7-6 win over the Blue Jays.

Elite Kids David Bakhtiari Jersey Rays pitcher Alex Cobb was lit up by the Astros, who tagged Cobb for eight runs off of nine hits in three innings. Cobb failed to strike out a batter and walked two while surrendering home runs to Carlos Beltran and Alex Bregman.Elite Kids Ramon Foster Jersey
Rangers first baseman Joey Gallo went 0 for 4 with two strikeouts in a 6-4 loss to the Mariners. Gallo left three runners on base and is now hitting a putrid .197 on the season.

Washington Nationals pitchers Sean Doolittle and Ryan Zimmerman, who both played college baseball at Virginia, said the incidents shouldn’t reflect on the people of the university or the town.